Saturday, November 01, 2008

Keith Olbermann on the tenuous Khalidi-Obama connection and how McCain's connection is much bigger. McCain and his gang of idiots continue to flail about desperately in search of something, anything that will stick with the voters. Ayers, ACORN, Joe the Plumber... is this the best shit he can come up with? He's starting to make Bush look like a master of strategery.

"But once you become active in something, something happens to you. You get excited and suddenly you realize you count."

"I hope for peace and sanity - it's the same thing."

"I hope that memory is valued - that we do not lose memory."

"I think it's realistic to have hope. One can be a perverse idealist and say the easiest thing: 'I despair. The world's no good.' That's a perverse idealist. It's practical to hope, because the hope is for us to survive as a human species. That's very realistic."

"I want a language that speaks the truth."

"I want people to talk to one another no matter what their difference of opinion might be."

"I want, of course, peace, grace, and beauty. How do you do that? You work for it."

"I'm not up on the Internet, but I hear that is a democratic possibility. People can connect with each other. I think people are ready for something, but there is no leadership to offer it to them. People are ready to say, 'Yes, we are part of a world.'"

"I've always felt, in all my books, that there's a deep decency in the American people and a native intelligence - providing they have the facts, providing they have the information."

"People are ready to say, 'Yes, we are ready for single-payer health insurance.' We are the only industrialized country in the world that does not have national health insurance. We are the richest in wealth and the poorest in health of all the industrial nations."

"In a democratic society, you're supposed to be an activist; that is, you participate. It could be a letter written to an editor."

1. Passing it on: an online petition to get Terrence Howard back in Iron Man 2. For some reason, the decision was made to replace Terrence Howard with Don Cheadle in the sequel, which is actually a pretty awful decision (sorry, Don, but ever since your stint on ER, I can’t stand you as an actor). Howard didn’t know about the decision until he read about it in the news. That’s just cold, Favreau. That’s just cold. So any little bit to get Howard back in the movie is okay with me.

2. According to information from the Huygens probe, Titan’s atmosphere contains a faint electrical field, which points to the possibility of lightning strikes. It’s an exciting discovery because many biochemists believe lightning striking Earth was a catalyst for triggering reactions that created life. Titan’s atmosphere contains chemicals similar to Earth’s prebiotic state, which suggests the possibility that life could form on Titan. And that is extremely exciting.

3. Gwen Stefani and her new baby Zuma. That baby is so high right now. Maybe he’s been hanging out with Boo Berry too much. He always looks pretty stoned.

4. Well, I Guy Richie and Madonna are divorcing and badmouthing each other like crazy in the press, not realizing that it makes them look like bigger assholes. Guy, you had sex with this creature and let it ruin your credibility as a director and you want sympathy now? And Madonna, you’re Madonna. Fuck off.

5. You know, why the hell aren’t those children in school?

6. Gee, who could have predicted (repeatedly) that the Splurge wouldn’t work? Not only are they finding conflicts of interest everywhere, but now it turns out that Chase is using their bailout money to buy up other banks and hoard up in case things get tougher. They’re not actually using the money for its intended purpose, which was to continue making loans. And the government isn’t doing jack to make sure the money gets used that way, either. So much for oversight. By the way, the economy shrank in the third quarter. So, are we “officially” in a recession yet?

7. A couple of guys in Russia were just arrested for cannibalism. They’d fallen on hard times economically and were kidnapping people and using them for food. Just a look at a possible direction if McCain wins.

8. Here’s Joe Biden in that Barbara West interview. Is she really a news anchor or is it just some kind of joke? The fact that Drudge (who seems to finally be figuring out no one is taking him seriously) said this was proof of Biden becoming unhinged and losing his cool just shows how scared and desperate the right wingers really are. Biden doesn’t blow his top, even in the face of loaded questions and outright lies. Meanwhile, West softballed McCain with questions that were along the line of “Senator McCain, why are you so great?” West’s husband, meanwhile, is a GOP media consultant. Big surprise. What the fuck has happened to the media?

9. Looks like Traitor Joe is going to lose his chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee. Good fucking riddance. It’ll be nice not to have a Bush rubber stamp in that position.

10. By the way, remember how Bush was never going to agree to a timetable? Looks like he desperately wants to do so now, since our UN Resolution expires at the end of the year and Iraq doesn’t want a renewal. So now Bush is agreeing to anything in order to keep troops in Iraq, even to a timetable remarkably similar to Obama’s. Interesting. Vikkitikkitavi has a post here that explains it perfectly.

11. Keith Olbermann, once again on Sarah Palin and the fraud she’s perpetrating by calling Obama a socialist when she herself bragged about Alaska being a socialist state at the start of the campaign. Nice to see someone talking about that. What he doesn’t point out is that it’s been shown that Palin raised taxes in Alaska in order to boost the size of the annual checks to Alaska residents. Or how much of the wealth she’s redistributing to her own family. She’s already been found by a court to have violated ethics on Troopergate, we know she basically stole money from Wassila to redecorate her office; hopefully, she’ll be out on her ass over these travel expenses. And the FEC is probably going to smack her down over the wardrobe. And yet, even after blaming the RNC for the wardrobe fiasco, she still says that when McCain loses the election, she’s going to be the one to lead the GOP. Because she’s such a maverick, I guess.

12. More Palin: the Alaska Federation of Natives are calling on Alaska to declare an energy emergency for rural Alaskans who are going to face a very hard winter in a state where fuel is being rationed and heating costs are becoming prohibitively expensive. So much for being a rich energy-producing state (of course, this is a woman who just called for more drilling while talking to solar energy plant workers, so I’m thinking the energy credentials have been overstated). Palin, who does not appoint Natives to office, has put Alaska’s Attorney General Talis Colberg in charge of the energy crisis Alaska is about to face (this is a state where heating can be as much as 40% of a family’s household budget). Colberg, by the way, was the subject of a petition with 1200 signatures demanding he be removed from office, apparently because he advised state employees to ignore legislative subpoenas. Palin ignored that like she ignores all Native concerns.

13. It’s amazing how McCain’s accusations against Obama actually keep making McCain look worse. The newest attack this week is that Obama once “partied with” Rashid Khalidi, a respected professor and former head of the American Committee on Jerusalem. In fact, Obama attended a banquet in his honor and Khalidi is only being singled out now because he opposes the Iraq War and has unfashionable opinions on Israel (as do many people, including myself) and is apparently suspected of connections with the PLO. Conveniently forgotten is that McCain himself once gave nearly half a million dollars to Khalidi’s Center for Palestine Research and Studies through the International Republican Institute, which was chaired by McCain. This is more race-baiting from the McCampaign, intended at the last minute to reach the retired Jewish population in Florida and scare them off of Obama, who has never said he was against Israel. NEVER. Remember, seniors, McCain wants to cut your Medicaid and Medicare. I’d keep that in mind.

14. McCain did, however, admit to Larry King that he didn’t believe Obama was a socialist. But hey, whatever helps you win, right? There’s the integrity we’ve come to expect. By the way, every Republican seems to think McCain is going to lose, from Colin Powell to Mitt Romney to Charles Mathias to fellow Arizona Senator Jon Kyl to Chris Shays, who said he felt McCain lost his maverick image by running a dirty campaign. Wait, isn’t Shays the co-chair of the Connecticut branch of the McCain campaign? Ouch.

15. Oh, and speaking of Florida, Republican Governor Charlie Crist is ordering that the polls stay open longer so more people can get in and vote. I’m sure the GOP loves him right now. Why does it seem like interfering with votes is the only way they know how to win? One Republican reacted with the words: “They just blew Florida for McCain.”

16. Man, even Fox News can’t take Joe the Now-I-Want-an-Album-Deal and his comments on Obama’s relationship to Israel seriously. “Joe” has nothing to say and when he does say something, he can’t defend himself or his idiot opinions. What a fucktard. Joe the Fucktard. It’s fascinating how quickly Fox News has been disengaging itself from McCain. Hell, they had a whole argument with an Obama spokesman for suggesting Fox News was colluding with the McCampaign. And Cavuto said McCain didn’t have any convictions on economic policy. That’s how badly they don’t want to be associated with McCain anymore. (Although, honestly, if they want to keep throwing “fair and balanced” out as their gimmick, shouldn’t they start airing a left-leaning version of O’Reilly?)

17. Well, hell, just a few days later, Not-Joe the Not-a-Plumber didn’t even show up at a McCain rally. Here’s McCain pulling a real My Pet Goat moment when he calls out Joe the Plumber to come stand with him and Joe isn’t even there. Nice. It takes McCain an embarrassing amount of time to recover, too. By the way, the McCampaign had to bus in an entire school district worth of kids to make the event look packed. It was probably one of the few times those kids would rather have been in science class.

18. Here’s what Douglas Holtz-Eakin, McCain’s senior economic advisor, had to say about the possibility of workers leaving their employer-provided health plans for a private insurer with McCain’s proposed tax credit: “Why would they leave? What they are getting from their employer is way better than what they could get with the credit.” I’ll bet McCain’s not very happy with someone taking the meaning of “straight talk” too far. Holtz-Eakin should just explain to McCain that he was being a maverick.

20. Dennis Prager, right wing talk show shitwit (this quote proves it, so I feel justified saying it), while defending Hate Party candidate Michelle Bachmann: “Equality, which is the primary value of the left, is a European value, not an American value.” Someone get this jackass a copy of the Constitution so he can glance at the Fourteenth Amendment, alright? The scary thing about Bachmann is not that she basically advocated reigniting HUAC, but that the people who rushed to her defense are equally as stupid about what the Constitution actually says about freedom, equality, and responsibility. You want to talk anti-American? It’s a radio pundit who feels qualified to comment on the inner workings of American politics but has clearly never read the document that defines policy.

...because the old one is leaving after all. David Tennant has come out and said that he'd always intended to do three series and leave when executive producer Russell T. Davies did. Tennant is going to stay on through next year's specials, but Steven Moffatt is starting his series in 2010 with a clean slate and a new Doctor.

I guess I'm not surprised that Tennant is going. I'm a little disappointed, because he's been so good and he's gotten better and better, but if it's time for a new Doctor, it's time for a new Doctor. Three series and a year of specials is a good run, I think, and after the great ending of series four, which I felt wrapped up everything, I like that Moffatt is going to be able to chart his own direction with his own Doctor.

This is the last part of my horror movie retrospective. These are the movies that I stupidly missed from my master list of movies I've seen. So I'm really just disorganized. Anyway, here they are.

* The Mummy (1932) -- I watched this again the other night on AMC. I didn't like it very much the first time I saw it, about ten years ago, but I really appreciated it much more this time. Boris Karloff is quite good, of course, but something about the moody quality of the movie really got to me and just took me off. A classic.

* Bedlam (1946) -- I was a little less impressed with this movie, but I still enjoyed it. This is a Val Lewton production about a woman who brings up the horrible conditions of patients of an asylum, then finds herself imprisoned within to silence her. Boris Karloff is great as the sinister master of the asylum.

* The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949) -- a Disney movie which I should have mentioned because the second segment in this picture, "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," is a Halloween staple of mine. It's a wonderful musical representation of the Irving story, which I read every Halloween, featuring Bing Crosby's narration and singing. It's like a great Disney short with added length. The first segment, "The Wind and the Willows," I'm not so crazy about.

* House of Wax (1953) -- Vincent Price in a superior remake of The Mystery of the Wax Museum. As Professor Jerrod, Price makes wax creations out of people. Price is pitch perfect in this film, and I think part of his genius is the way he can describe the most macabre details of (in this case) torture or murder with a slight grin, as though he's going to build toward a punchline. Even if this movie were terrible, it would be worth it for Price's perfomance alone. But the film is far from terrible. This was filmed in 3-D, and one of my favorite bits in the movie is the carnival barker looking right at the audience and saying "You! With the popcorn! Hold still!" and then whacking a paddle ball towards the camera.

* The Pit and the Pendulum (1961) -- there's a great build-up of tension in this movie, with John Kerr as a young man visiting his brother-in-law (Vincent Price) with questions about the circumstances of his sister's (Barbara Steele) death. For some time, it almost seems like there's nothing going on, and though nothing will happen. And then... oh, and then...

* Tower of London (1962) -- well, they tried. Roger Corman's remake of the 1939 movie (which I love, daft as it is) is slow, ponderous, and ill-conceived. I know Corman was up against a lot of budget restrictions, and he tries to tell the story of Richard III in an interesting way, but it just doesn't come off at all. Vincent Price, in the lead, even does poorly, mugging his way through the movie and saddled with narration-as-inner-monologue, which is almost never a good device and makes him come across sort of whiny. A real disappointment.

* Kwaidan (1964) -- visually stunning Japanese epic depicting four ghost stories. One of the greatest movies you will ever see in your life.

* The Last Man on Earth (1964) -- I could see what they were going for, but it's a dull movie.

* Scream and Scream Again (1971) -- I hate saying a movie with Vincent Price, Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee is bad, but this movie is bad. Everyone is underused, and the plot is incomprehensible. Great theme song, though.

* Black Christmas (1974) -- what I love about this movie is that no one ever figures out who did it or why. That doesn't always work in horror, but it does here. Now there's a remake that tried to explain things to no effect. This movie is much better.

* When a Stranger Calls (1979) -- we all hear this story when we're kids: "The phone calls are coming from inside the house!" Well, this is the movie that does the story. And it does the story extremely well... for the first 30 minutes. After that, it's a free fall. The first half-hour, with Carol Kane as a babysitter being terrorized by harassing phone calls, builds up the tension marvelously. Unfortunately, that's not the end of the movie. After the killer is caught, we have to watch him get out of jail, try to have a relationship, find himself unable to adjust to the world, and then start stalking Carol Kane again. Blurgh. It's a real letdown. Watch the first act and then hang the rest.

* The Awakening (1980) -- I had forgotten I'd even seen this silly piece of garbage. Chuck Heston as an Egyptologist who falls in love with his daughter after she gets possessed by a mummy. Worse than it sounds.

* Swamp Thing (1982) -- I guess some people consider this a horror movie. I just consider it a bad one. Adrienne Barbeau is marvelous, though. One of the classic skin scenes of all time.* The Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983) -- the opening segment, with Albert Brooks and Dan Aykroyd in the car, is great. Then comes John Landis's predictable (and unfortunately Vic Morrow-killing) segment, which is expendable. The Steven Spielberg segment, "Kick the Can," is still Spielberg's most treacly outpouring of sap, but has a nice Scatman Crothers performance. The real treat here is the Joe Dante segment, "It's a Good Life," which is absolutely brilliant (and features Kevin McCarthy and Dick Miller!). That's worth sitting through the first two segments. The final segment, George Miller's take on "Nightmare at 30,000 Feet," is pretty good, but I think Shatner was better.

* Firestarter (1984) -- I don't really remember much here other than liking Drew Barrymore. I had a big crush on her at the time. I mean, you know, since I was six.

* Invaders from Mars (1986) -- awful.

* Maximum Overdrive (1986) -- great concept, great Green Goblin truck design, great AC/DC soundtrack, crappy movie. Stephen King is almost as bad a director as he is an actor.

* Dolls (1987) -- really, really freaked me out when I was a kid.

* The Woman in Black (1989) -- didn't do much for me.

* Doctor Mordrid: Master of the Unknown (1990) -- my stepmom's brother-in-law and his sons had a tradition where they would rent a bunch of silly horror movies on Thanksgiving. I was at their house this year, and all I remember here was that he was disappointed when he saw the title of the movie because he thought his sons had said it was called Doctor Morbid. He was a lot less interested in a Doctor Mordrid than a Doctor Morbid.

* Soultaker (1990) -- oddly, I saw this on a local channel right after it had been done on Mystery Science Theater 3000. Care to guess which version is better? Keep in mind that this stars Martin Sheen's brother as a spirit taking people's souls through cheap glowing bracelets. That said, the uncut version is better than the edited version on MST3K would lead you to believe.

* Stephen King's It (1990) -- I honestly don't remember much of this outside of the bare story points and that it had a bunch of good TV actors in it. Tim Curry's Pennywise is pretty unforgettable, of course, but otherwise I just don't have it up there.

* Tremors (1990) -- hilarious horror comedy that has a bunch of giant worm creatures attacking a tiny town of people. I haven't seen this in years, but I've always enjoyed the hell out of it (especially Michael Gross and Reba McEntire). I need to see this movie again as soon as possible.

* The Witches (1990) -- great Henson movie based on the Roald Dahl book. Anjelica Huston is especially good as the head witch. Great makeup. Oh, and the first time I ever saw Rowan Atkinson.

* Strays (1991) -- something with... cats or something?

* Boxing Helena (1993) -- it's a horror movie, I guess. It's also terrible. Julian Sands keeps Sherilyn Fenn by hacking off a limb at a time. Made out of someone's creepy sex fantasy and an explosion at the heavy-handed symbolism store.

* Tremors 2: Aftershocks (1996) -- or as it should be known, Tremors 2: Afterthoughts. This time, the worms can walk. Meh. They shouldn't have tried to milk it.

* Anaconda (1997) -- absolutely silly, but surprisingly fun. Still, my biggest memory about it is Jennifer Lopez's ass. That was the moment I knew she was going to be a star. When she's writing a letter in an early scene, wearing a thin nightgown, and then gets up and walks away from the camera to answer her door. Every single guy in that theater made a very audible "whoa." (Funnily enough, this was the same year The Ice Storm came out, which also featured every guy in the theater saying "whoa" when a newly overdeveloped Christina Ricci emerged from under that blanket.)

* Cube (1997) -- interesting skiffy horror film with people trapped inside of a cube and moving from room to room, getting killed in all sorts of different ways. Doesn't add up to much, but it was different from anything I'd scene up to that point.

* Spawn (1997) -- really terrible movie with really inventive special effects that almost make it. Plus John Leguizamo is actually very good in it. But it's a chore to watch. Todd McFarlane's comic was so big, so huge, such an attention-getter. But when you think about it, the only truly great issues were written by Dave Sim and Alan Moore, and the whole thing is just forgettable nonsense.

* Stephen King's The Shining (1997) -- I much prefer this to the Kubrick movie, even with Steven Webber in the lead. It makes much more sense.

* Quicksilver Highway (1998) -- I remember seeing it, I remember it had Matt Frewer, I remember it was on Fox. That is all.

* The Astronaut's Wife (1999) -- Rosemary's Baby rip-off so bad that I forgot I even sat through it. Johnny Depp and Charlize Theron lower themselves to star.

* Idle Hands (1999) -- blurgh. Even then I was tired of Jessica Alba. Not as clever as it thinks it is.

* Night of the Headless Horseman (1999) -- computer-animated version of the Irving story. It's okay. Clancy Brown is the voice of Brom Bones.

* Satan's School for Girls (1999) -- I like Shannen Doherty, actually. But not this movie so much.

* Stigmata (1999) -- another stupid millennial horror movie.

* The Gift (2000) -- an underrated Sam Raimi movie that it seemed like no one saw. Well, except for Katie Holmes's breasts, everyone remembers those. But this was a damn good movie.

* Donnie Darko (2001) -- someone once told me this was "the scariest movie you've never seen." I hate when people say that kind of "you've never seen" shit. Anyway, I didn't really think this movie was scary so much as weird. Really, really weird. Really, really good and really, really weird.

* Hannibal (2001) -- actually, I liked this one. It was much more comfortable embracing how over-the-top it was. And Anthony Hopkins was more elegant and less ridiculous.

* Valentine (2001) -- actually, it's a pretty decent (if predictable) horror flick with someone cutting down a group of friends that includes Marley Shelton and Katherine Heigl.

* Jason X (2002) -- the less said about it, the better.

* Red Dragon (2002) -- and we're back to Anthony Hopkins being ridiculous again. I thought Ralph Fiennes was good, but this is no spot on Manhunter.

* Signs (2002) -- the one Shyamalan film that continues to work for me. And it genuinely scared me a couple of times.

* Freddy vs. Jason (2003) -- a wasted opportunity that doesn't make either character very scary or impressive. I have these scenes in my head for Freddy Kruger, actually; I think you could really make him a terrifying character again. And the actor playing Jason is too small to be scary. As for the rest... jeez, who even remembers?

* Club Dread (2004) -- Bill Paxton is funny, the rest is forgettable. I liked Paxton as a Jimmy Buffett wannabe who claims Buffett ripped him off and calls him "a son of a son of a bitch."

* Hellboy (2004) -- how could I include Ghostbusters for being Cthulhian and forget Hellboy? I fucking love this movie.

* Salem's Lot (2004) -- Rutger Hauer was in it and I was bored and that's all I remember.

* Seed of Chucky (2004) -- it's funny up to a point. And more Jennifer Tilly!

* Van Helsing (2004) -- one of the low points of the last decade. I liked Schuler Hensley's take on Frankenstein's monster, predictable as it was, but I hated this movie, absolutely hated it. The worst offenders were Kate Beckinsale's heavy Pottsylvanian accent and Richard Roxburgh's makes-Lugosi-look-subtle Dracula. Stupid to the point of criminality.

* The Village (2004) -- puts the "sham" in "Shyamalan." And Lady in the Water just makes it worse. This movie was just embarrassing.

* The Initiation of Sarah (2006) -- stupid, but I loved that JoAnna Garcia was the leader of the sorority cult. I love her.

* Pulse (2006) -- unwatchable.

* When a Stranger Calls (2006) -- the remake wisely just focuses on the first half-hour of the original version. It also proves that it's very hard to do so. What might make a decent episode of Masters of Horror here becomes too much, too long, too loud. Of course, the crappy director doesn't help. But I think Camilla Belle has a good scream.

* The Wicker Man (2006) -- everything you've heard about how awful this film is doesn't quite go far enough. One of the worst films ever made, one of the most unneccesary remakes in history, and Nicolas Cage at his absolute worst (seriously, even for him). And I knew this would be true as it started on HBO, but I watched it anyway, because like the director and I just had to know for myself. I'm an idiot.

* Grindhouse (2007) -- one of my favorite movies. Planet Terror is stylish, but mostly a retread and it doesn't all come together. Death Proof, I love, especially the extended version. Much-maligned.

* Hellboy: Blood and Iron (2007) -- not as good as Storm of Swords, but still good.

* R.L. Stine's The Haunting Hour (2007) -- I hope Emily Osment has a future. She's really quite good. The filmmakers here decided that, even though they were making a kiddie movie, they could make something scary and emotionally believable instead of making a joke out of it because kids are supposedly easy to please (which is what happened with this year's execrable R.L. Stine's Mostly Ghostly, which I would be embarrassed to show a four-year-old). This one I would recommend for parents with kids under ten.

Alright, now that really is the entire list. Well, except for movies in very recent Film Weeks. But still, this is the end of this.

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

"We've tried it John McCain's way. We've tried it George Bush's way. It hasn't worked. Deep down, Senator McCain knows that, which is why his campaign said that 'if we keep talking about the economy, we're going to lose.'

That's why he's spending these last few days calling me every name in the book. I'm sorry to see my opponent sink so low. Lately, he's called me a socialist for wanting to roll back the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans so we can finally give tax relief to the middle class.

By the end of the week, he'll be accusing me of being a secret communist because I shared my toys in Kindergarten." -- Barack Obama

What were you last year for Halloween?An underemployed substitute teacher. Well, that wasn't specifically for Halloween, but you get the idea. I have no occasion to get a costume anymore.

What are you going to be this year?Same thing as last year, it looks like.

Favorite costume you have ever worn?When I was something like six or seven, I went as Mer-Man from Masters of the Universe. It actually wasn't much of a costume, but it was the first year I got to wear a real Halloween mask that covered your head instead of one of those paper masks with the stupid plastic smocks. I just wore my raincoat, which happened to be dark green so it matched with the mask. That's one of the costumes I can remember being really, truly excited about.

How do you spend your Halloween?Generally with a little candy and a lot of horror movies. As always, Turner Classic Movies is airing a lot of stuff I haven't seen before, so that's what I'll be doing. We don't get trick or treaters here.

Are you or are you not going trick or treating this year?At my age? They'd lock me up.

Did or do you pull Halloween pranks?When I was in middle school, there were the requisite Halloween pranks. Now I just like pranks in general, to the consternation of everyone I love.

Do you believe in ghosts?No, but most of the people I know are convinced they've felt a presence at one time or another. I've told the story before of having a premonition of the death of a family member I had never even met before, which turned out to be true (I felt an intense, tingling warmth on my face and arm at, apparently, the exact moment my great aunt fell on the floor and died). But I'm not a person who says they believe in ghosts. Apparently my grandma's house was haunted, too, but I never felt it (though a couple of cousins swear they saw him and he always made them feel better when they were upset; weird).

Are you superstitious?Every so often, I think. Generally, no.

Do you like caramel popcorn?Yes. I used to love it, but I ate so much of it when I was 13 that I got really sick. So now I don't seek it out.

Have you ever gone in the country to look for pumpkins?No, I usually buy them at the store or a farmer's stand.

Have you ever been on a hayride?Yes, and I've always found them pretty relaxing. It's nice just sitting there and having a horse or a tractor slowly pull you around the neighborhood.

Do you decorate your home for Halloween?Yes. Not in the elaborate way I'd like, but yes.

Have you ever been to a haunted house?Yes. My old neighborhood used to sponsor a haunted forest walk which was surprisingly awesome. And I've participated in haunted houses, back before they apparently became an affront to civilization.

Have you ever been to a graveyard on Halloween?Once in high school with this girl, Kristi, that I was totally trying to bone. Not a romantic way to put it, I know, but it's true. She had this sort of Tori Amos/fairy/gypsy look that I always go for.

Have you ever attended a Halloween party?Not since I was a kid.

Do you watch scary movies on Halloween?Yes, and pretty much the whole month of October. I have my Halloween staples. It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown was on ABC last night.

Have you ever had your candy stolen from you?No, and I think anyone who would steal a kid's Halloween candy is the kind of person I'd have no problem pushing in front of a train.

Did you ever steal any ones candy?No, Halloween candy is a sacred thing. One year on Halloween my sister went into shock and had to be rushed to the emergency room to have her appendix removed. I felt really bad for her that she couldn't go trick or treating, so I set aside half my candy for her and didn't touch it. She couldn't eat it for a while, but it was hers.

Has anyone ever gotten hurt due to your prank?No, that would be malicious. Any pranks I've played were just meant to frighten or shock, and I feel really bad if anyone gets hurt by them.

My favorite prank happened when I was 12 or 13. My sister had been making fun of me for years because when we first saw E.T. I was six and it really scared me. Those men chasing E.T. in the woods made me so frightened that I ran out of the theater. Well, Jayne never let me forget it and teased me for years, so I finally turned the tables on her. We used to live in a town house that had a utility room in the basement, and we did the laundry down there. One night after my parents got divorced, we were picking up some of our clean clothes because our dad was there to pick us up for the weekend. So, it's like a fall Friday night, and it's very dark. No other lights on in the basement (and our basement was finished and nice; we played with our toys and watched TV down there). The second she turned off the light, I did my best strangled E.T. scream. She screamed at the top of her lungs, frightened out of her mind. I ran upstairs and she was right behind me. That was awesome.

Another great moment I've mentioned before: the Ghosts of Ireland story. When my sister was a senior in high school, she and my mom were watching one of their stupid shows about ghosts that are always on channels that should know better like History or Discovery. It's about 10 at night. Jayne (who is still afraid of the Candyman) was always as sensitive as I was to scary stuff, but she stayed that way a lot longer than I did. Anyway, after their Ghosts of Ireland crap is over, I am asked (for some fucking reason) to put Jayne's prom dress in her closet. She has a hallway in her room leading to a bathroom, with one closet on either side. It's unlit enough that it has its own overhead lamp. So, knowing she's about to come into her bedroom, I stand behind the dress where she can't see me and hold up the dress like it's floating. She sees it and screams at the top of her lungs. Satisfying.

For years I had everyone convinced that I was just putting the dress away and she freaked out. Then I finally admitted that I'd been waving the dress to make it look like it was floating and making whooshing sounds with my mouth, finally saying "Aarrr, I be a ghost of Arland!"

There's a corollary to this: one time when we were kids, she was chasing me across the basement. We were pretty damn little. I got tired of her being all hyper like she usually was and stopped running. Then I held out my fist like in a Looney Tunes cartoon and she ran right into it. Brilliant. I couldn't believe it really worked. To this day she says that I punched her, but the truth is she ran into my fist.

Have you ever dressed as a witch/warlock?No. My sister was one of those kids who dressed up as a witch practically every year. I have no interest in warlocks and very little in witches. I liked monsters.

Are your parents into Halloween?It doesn't seem much like it. I don't know about my dad. My mom likes to watch ghost movies.

THE TENANT (1976)Tense, claustrophobic film about a man slowly, relentlessly going mad. Roman Polanski stars (and directs) as a loner who moves into a small apartment that was previously occupied by a woman who has thrown herself out the window. The apartment is like a police state, with the stern landlord (Melvyn Douglas) and his sycophantic tenants bent on quashing any noise (or sign of life). There are a lot of weird, haunting things going on in the building, but it's the intrusiveness of the police attitude that really seems to get to Polanski. Everyone treats him like crap, even to absurd levels. As time goes on, Polanski begins to have a psychological breakdown that also doubles as a rebellion against his conformist lifestyle and surroundings. He starts to accuse everyone of trying to drive him mad, and he becomes suddenly and violently obsessed with this idea, in the end succumbing to a cycle of compulsive cruelty and dependent compliance. It's more effective that Polanski doesn't wrap everything up neatly, but instead deliberately makes some of the film elusive. A brilliant movie, one of Polanski's masterpieces. **** stars. Gorgeous cinematography by Sven Nykvist.

BEHIND THE MASK: THE RISE OF LESLIE VERNON (2007)A brilliant film that satirizes the conventions of the slasher movie and then embraces them. A grad student film crew is making a documentary about Leslie Vernon (Nathan Baesel in a great, hilarious performance), a serial killer wannabe who lets them in on all the tricks of the trade and the industry terms and basically shows them how he's going to carry out his murders. It's hilarious, winking at the audience and letting them know it respects their intelligence and their love of the genre. I love how the horror movie scenes are shot like a horror movie. The third act is where it all comes together, when the cameras go down and the director decides she has to intervene in Leslie's plan, only to discover that he was planning something else the whole time. And it all comes together. **** stars.

W. (2008)Oliver Stone took the right tack with this movie by not making a straightforward biopic. In fact, he doesn't really draw much of a conclusion on the man's life or his presidency. Instead, he reenacts key moments we were already aware of, mixes in things he surmises about policy, and shows us incidents from Bush's life from his college days on. It all comes together to draw an impression of the man, not a definitive portrait. It's not meant to take down the presidency in the waning days, and it's not meant to draw your opinion of Bush one way or another. If you're remotely thoughtful, you've already made up your mind about Bush. Instead, Stone takes the frustrations of the past eight years and has you draw your own conclusions. I found the movie thoroughly engaging, but also slight. It's a snapshot, and one worth thinking about, but the interesting approach Stone takes to the film also means it isn't very substantive. Josh Brolin is excellent as W, always eating while he talks or saying something stupid. He and Stone present a W that isn't really engaged with the world around him because he doesn't really care about anything except getting his daddy to be proud. Elizabeth Banks is also excellent as a completely detached Laura, who has nothing to offer but vague words of encouragement. Most of the actors are good, but I'd especially single out Jeffrey Wright as Colin Powell, who tries to maintain his dignity but ultimately goes along for the ride; Richard Dreyfuss as Dick Cheney, who wisely chooses not to impersonate the man; and Toby Jones as Karl Rove, lurking like Gollum in the shadows, his only desire to see W installed in power. Most of the performances are good, though many are all-too-brief. I found Thandie Newton's Condi just a shade over the point of parody, though. **** stars.

SLITHER (2006)It's Invasion of the Body Snatchers meets Night of the Living Dead meets The Blob meets The Thing meets a whole mess of other horror movies. It's not original, but it really works. Michael Rooker is taken over by a worm from outer space, and he begins taking over others, turning an entire small town to his will and opposed only by his wife (Elizabeth Banks), the town sheriff (Nathan Fillion) and a teenage girl. Made by Troma veteran (and writer of Dawn of the Dead and Scooby-Doo) James Gunn specifically, I think, for horror fans. Much, much better than I had heard it was, actually. ***1/2 stars.

GODZILLA VS. MEGAGIRUS (2000)Pretty much as tiresome and long-winded as most of the Godzilla films of the nineties. The human characters are never very interesting. Pretty good effects for a Godzilla movie, though, and the Godzilla costume looks better than ever. ** stars.

HOUSE OF GAMES (1987)Sophisticated, elegant con from David Mamet, with Lindsay Crouse as a psychiatrist fascinated by Joe Mantegna, a con man who agrees to show her what conning people is like. There are a lot of great Mamet twists and turns in this one, a film on par with Things Change and Homicide. In the end, both are addicted to the danger of the con, and both push it too far. The movie is nicely subtle and made for adults. Mantegna is especially great. **** stars.

THE BLACK ROOM (1935)Boris Karloff plays 19th century twin noblemen who are destined to fulfill a prophecy that will bring about the end of their house. Predictable and slow, but there's one really good scene, the trick photography is pretty good, and Karloff is great. **1/2 stars.

It pegs the GOP ticket exactly right up until a few days ago. Apparently Sarah Palin and John McCain really are at war with each other. The McCain aides hate Palin, the Palin aides hate the McCain aides, and nothing's really getting done. One possibly extreme report says that he won't even talk to her now. First McCain won't talk to leaders of other nations (not even Spain). Then he freezes out news outlets that are "hostile" to Sarah Palin. He won't look Obama in the eye. Now he won't even talk to his own running mate?

Oh, and I'd like to thank Sarah Palin for the $150,000 wardrobe fiasco. She blamed the whole thing on the RNC. Good luck getting them to support you in 2012 now.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

As always, I like a wonky, off-balance pumpkin. I wanted this one to look like he was cock-eyed and sneering. I'm always about a minimal number of lines. I like how he looks crotchety and annoyed. He's like the John McCain of the pumpkin world, without the sweaty panic.

Becca's is much more elaborate and awesome.

As a side note, look at those pumpkin walls. Those were some thick pumpkins this year!

Here they are lit up.

And, for the hell of it, here are a couple more elaborate geek pumpkins.

And here's a random image I found on a Google search. Great Jack Pumpkinhead costume; he's my favorite Oz character.

I'm glad we still live in a country where there is at least an orangutan surplus.

I've got to either get back on track with the health or just stop doing these posts altogether. I've barely been reporting on my health because I don't have much to say. I'm not gaining a ton of weight, but I'm not losing any right now, either. I'm just sort of stuck. I was sick last week, and since the Saturday before last I've just been off somehow. My whole body still aches, but I've been trying not to slow down. I haven't been out to take any walks or work out, though. Becca and I hit the zoo last week, and I'm still sore from that, even though I do better every year when it comes to not having to stop and sit down constantly, I'm still achy from it.

So... blurgh. Nothing much to talk about when it comes to the health. I really need to change that. This has been off and on for far, far too long.

But at the same time, I know I'm not going to do anything about it until I'm feeling better.

With all of the cries of "socialism" going around, I sure wish the right wing could explain to people what their version of socialism actually is. They never explain it, and their supporters only know that they're supposed to foam at the mouth whenever anyone mentions the word. The fact is, there are countries in the world who have democratic socialism as a basic, and those people are laughing at the inability of the United States to take care of its own (I know, because I get emails from those countries telling me just that).

Is Canada or the UK evil for nationalizing health care? If nationalized health care is so inefficient, why aren't all the Canadians dead? If it's so inefficient and wrong, why do government employees like John McCain, cancer survivor, enjoy it? Is Scandanavia wrong for giving employees 30 days of vacation a year? Yeah, socialism is just awful. Who wants a free college education when you can spend the rest of your life in debt?

Give me a break.

Is the system we have now really so great? I mean, BushCo just nationalized most of the financial sector. So where's your rock? It's not McCain; he voted for the Splurge, so he supports socialism, too. So does Sarah Palin. As Governor of Alaska, she redistributes the wealth of oil profits directly to citizens. Alaska is one of the most socialist states in the union. You want to talk Marxist terminology? Palin is the governor of a state that practices collective ownership of natural resources. And Alaska spends more tax per capita than any other state. Of course, it helps that the population of Alaska is the size of a small Midwestern town.

McCain said a while back that Obama's tax plan was socialist because Obama wants to give you tax credits. Meanwhile, McCain wants to give you tax credits. Obama is going to raise taxes on rich people who can afford to pay more (something McCain once publicly advocated, back when he was running in 2000) and lower them on people who are already being taxed too heavily. McCain wants to lower taxes on the rich and raise your tax bracket by taxing you on your health benefits. Yeah, if you make less than $250,000 a year and vote for McCain, you're a fucking idiot. Sorry, no time to mince words for the stupid to feel good about being stupid. They already feel good enough. That's why they don't know when they should be embarrassed.

By the way, groups of socialists don't think Obama is a socialist.

And you could easily call McCain's tax cuts for the rich welfare. He's a big advocate of corporate welfare, as Bush has been. Their economic policies are the same. If McCain is such a friend of the worker, why does he want to reward corporations that ship jobs overseas for slave labor and maximal profits with another tax break? Obama wants to reward corporations who keep jobs in America. How does that make Obama unpatriotic?

You know, the RNC bought Sarah Palin a $150,000 makeover. Do you consider that a better use of money than giving children health coverage? And did you know that the Splurge was roughly eight times more expensive than national health coverage would be for a year?

People just don't seem to understand how taxes work. My dad always says to me, when I talk about the need for national health coverage, that people in Canada pay much higher taxes for it. Well, you know, taxes pay for government services. That's how they work. Just look at the magic Bush worked on the economy when he decided he could cut taxes on rich people and fight two wars at the same time. Jesus Christ, America, you're already paying for government health care, you might as well be able to have access to it.

I think the fact that McCain is holding up Joe the Plumber as his major tool regarding the economic prosperity of his tax plan is the most laughable thing on the planet right now. Under McCain's tax plan, an average plumber would get 0.004% tax relief. Did you see the interview with "Joe" the Tax Evader on Hannity and Colmes, where he said that welfare was unfair to people who pay their taxes (something he doesn't know much about) and then went on to talk about how his parents were on welfare during hard times? Can this Joe the Plumber bullshit get any more ridiculous? Oh wait, it can. Because McCain has used Joe the Plumber as a foundation to claim he's a friend of small businessmen. Businessmen like J. Robert Long, whom McCain called "Bob the Boat Builder." Long's small business used to be Wellcraft Marine, which made $67 million last year. Oh, and apparently Cindy McCain is a "small businesswoman" now. I guess because Hensley & Co., worth $200 million, is only the third largest beer distributor in the country.

Do you really understand yet how out of touch McCain is when it comes to the small town "real" Americans and workers that he claims to love so much?

I mean, he does want to send more of them to die in Iraq, so I guess he does care about them on that level. Oh, and with his belittling of women's health issues, he also proved he cares about unborn children. See, mothers, it's not that he doesn't give a shit about any problems you might face. He just wants to force you to pump out more units even if it kills you. Which would be too bad, since he doesn't want the socialist welfare system to care for that now-motherless kid. No, this kid's got to be tough and live the American dream. And since he won't ever make enough money on his own to go to college, he'll have to join the Army instead, where Bush's McCain-supported 100 year war will welcome another sacrifice to American oil control. See how that works? McCain needs your infants for the infantry. And if that kid survives, he'll get to come home to crappy veteran care and a crappier privatized health care system that will refuse to treat him without immediate payment. And should he grow old, well, McCain plans to cut Medicare and Medicaid, and Social Security probably won't exist anymore (it'll all get lost on the market thanks to privatization and deregulation). But, you know, he can always die in a ditch somewhere, proud of having defended the American dream of wealth and prosperity for the top 1%. And won't he just be a proud American then?

Seriously, small town McCain supporters, what the fuck?

McCain's judgment is terrible. Look at Palin. There are so many reports going around now about Sarah Palin being off-script. Like I said before, she's pretty obviously positioning herself for a run in 2012. She's touting herself now, and she's doing it the same way McCain has touted himself--by saying virtually nothing about policy, but talking almost exclusively about how Barack Obama is a terrorist and a Marxist and a lot of made up bullshit that the GOP keeps repeating over and over again no matter how many times they've been disproven.

Seriously, conservatives, you have got to be ashamed of your party's massive leap to the far right. I know a lot of you are frustrated right now. I know conservatives who want to be true to the core values of the party, less government, less taxes, states' rights. I know conservatives who don't care about abortion or boys kissing or the church and are frankly embarrassed by the way neocons have tried to make all of those things key positions of the Republican platform. But why aren't you doing anything about it? There needs to be much more dialogue from the conservatives who are losing their party. Frankly, a lot of them seem to be keeping their mouths shut because they don't want to destroy the party. But that's what John McCain is doing, with his far right rhetoric and his adoption of Rovian politics, and that's what Sarah Palin's doing. Her friends in the Alaskan Independence Party think their policies are going right to the White House through her. And those people are basically Alaskan Klansmen. Yeah, they are.

And for all of the talk that people in Alaska love Sarah Palin (unless they're black or native), the Anchorage Daily News endorsed Obama. So did the Chicago Tribune, which hasn't endorsed a Democrat in its 161-year history. The New York Times endorsed Obama, too.

Less and less people want McCain and Palin in office. Hell, one poll suggested that Arizona might be a battleground state now.

Look at this:

Barack Obama with a crowd of 100,000 people who want to hear him speak.

Now look at John McCain's crowd. Something like 2500 people want to hear him talk. His audiences have been dropping like flies in the last few weeks. And that's even with the campaign lying about the numbers of people who have showed up.

Hell, even Brokaw stopped fellating McCain on Meet the Press and corrected McCain's assertion that Reagan reined in spending by pointing out that Reagan raised taxes right after a recession. That was an embarrassing interview filled with senior moments. McCain also did the current neocon rhetorical argument du jour, which was to imply that facts are something that one can choose or not choose to believe. Screw objective reality if it gets in the way of my comfortable delusions: I'm leading every poll!

And even McCain volunteers in Indiana walked off the job because they just couldn't spew the scripted lies about Obama over the phone anymore.

And did you hear about Joyce and Lillie McCain of Michigan? They're black, so I'm sure they don't hear too much from John. They're descendents of slaves owned by John McCain's great-great-grandfather. They endorsed Obama, too.

And Latinos are turning away from the Republican Party like mad. According to one poll, 75% of Latino voters think immigration is one of the most important issues in this election. Unsurprisingly, McCain's rhetoric is turning them away, and I'm sure Palin's race-baiting isn't helping matters. An enormous number of New Americans, immigrants who have been naturalized or the children of immigrants, are also voting Democrat. I guess they don't see a promise of diversity in the message that Obama is Arab, and that's bad, or in people like Michelle Bachman, who have openly said that diversity will destroy American culture. It would be sad to see so many Republicans so obliviously digging their own graves if they didn't deserve it so damn much.

You just can't deny that McCain did not vet Sarah Palin. From the outside, she looked like the perfect political choice--a woman, a conservative, a populist. But she's been a disaster and she's losing McCain votes. And I don't think it's because she's so horrible. I think it's because she makes it obvious that McCain's judgment is terrible. That he would pick her is a sign of how little he cares about anything but winning. Now they're finding out that the bidding process for her precious pipeline was unfair and unethical and meant to benefit a firm with inside ties to her administration. Sounds like Bush to me.

Oh, and Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska was convicted on all seven counts. Gee, now who pals around with criminals, Sarah?

And did a woman really shout "He's a nigger!" at a Palin rally? Palin heard it, stopped, and didn't address it. Keep on truckin', Sarah!

And the top paid staff member of the McCain campaign is Palin's make-up guy? And they still had the audacity to complain about that Newsweek cover?

And that faked attack on a woman who said an Obama supporter carved a letter into her face.

And reports from all over of Obama supporters being blamed for acts of vandalism and even shootings.

The GOP is doing what they usually do: attempting real voter fraud and then dividing and conquering the working class. Way to let them get away with it, McCain supporters. Answer me this: are you voting for McCain because you genuinely think his policies will support you in some way? Please explain.

And to undecideds: with less than a week to go, how could you not have made your minds up yet? Seriously, are you just too racist to vote for Obama and don't like McCain? Just vote for Barr or something and quit pretending this election is going to be a close affair.